Status Quo
by Julia456
Summary: Sequel to "Visited". Just another night for the GCPD...
1. Routine

Notes: This is a (loose) sequel to "Visited", which is a sequel to "Strays", which has prequels (why not?) in the form of "Of the Rest of Your Life" and "Lost and Found". I'd suggest reading them all first to avoid those brow-furrowing moments of confusion where you're all like, "Did I miss something?" (Yes, you have: four fics of something.)

But that's just my suggestion. :)

_---_

_No one is compelled to choose the profession of a police officer,  
but having chosen it,  
everyone is obliged to live up to the standard of its requirements._

_Calvin Coolidge_

_---_

_It's 90 percent boredom and 10 percent sheer terror._

_John Casey, police officer_

---

Renee Montoya grew up wanting to be a cop. A detective, just like the ones on TV – cool and tough and always busting the bad guys in the end.

Three years on the force in Gotham, and it hasn't been what she imagined. Not a minute of it. But she still wants to be a cop. She still wants to be a detective. She wants to be on the Major Crimes Unit, and she's going to get there come hell or high water.

Or come night shifts on patrol in the heart of the mean city.

"Chinese?" her partner suggests.

She makes a face. "Nothing worth eating east of Harlow."

"True." Wilkes thinks. "That place on 14th?"

Renee brakes for a red light and gives him a good hard glare. "How about we do our job instead of eat every ten minutes? How about that?"

He glowers but looks away after a moment. She's had his number since their first patrol together – looks tough, is actually a pushover – and she's steamrollered him into agreeing with pretty much everything she wants. Renee grew up in a house full of brothers; she's used to it.

"Fine," he mumbles.

She returns her attention to the street as the light turns green. What a baby. Can't go a few hours without snacks. As if there's so little crime in Gotham that patrol officers are blessed with an abundance of leisure time.

But. She'll be stuck in a car with this guy for the rest of their shift, and every night after that for who-knows-how-long – she's going up for her detective's exams next week, so cross your fingers – anyway, she'll be stuck with him for a while, and having your partner pissed at you is a bad idea regardless.

Wilkes, after all, is the officer who is most likely to save her ass in a shootout.

Renee tosses out an olive branch. "Look, when we get off, I'll buy you breakfast, okay? Denny's, wherever you want."

He continues to glower, then shrugs. "There's a diner on the river, you know, near Fleeting, that's open all night. Killer eggs."

"Okay," she says, determined to sound pleasant. Before she can say anything else, Dispatch squawks to life and tells them that there's a burglary in progress. Some swanky store in the so-called Diamond District, only a few blocks away from their current location. All available units in the area requested. And then the magic words:

_"Batman reported on scene."_

Renee puts on the lights and the siren and floors it. This part is _exactly_ like the cop shows, and it's a hell of a kick every single time. It's one of the reasons she insists on driving.

"Jesus _Christ_, Montoya!" Wilkes swears, grabbing for handholds as she takes a corner too fast. They're coming up on the location and she doesn't want to slow down.

She flicks an annoyed glance at him – and looks back at the street just in time for a solid black shape to come slinging out of the night and slam into her windshield.

"_¡Mierda!_" She stomps on the brakes automatically and the squad car fishtails to a squealing stop, slewed sideways across the lanes. The black shape – it's not a person, it's not Batman – slides across the hood and then drops to the asphalt.

The windshield is a ruined map of fractures. She can't see anything through it, so she hustles out of the car and pulls her weapon from her belt, holding it ready while she frantically scans the buildings for any sign of –

Overhead she sees a dark winged figure. Batman. It's the first time she's ever gotten a glimpse of him, despite her unabashed cheerleading of the man around the precinct, and she's a little awestruck. He's moving at an angle, up the street towards them, in pursuit of something. Or someone.

"Jesus Christ," her partner gasps. He lifts his gun to aim at the vigilante and Renee barks, unthinking, "_Don't shoot!_"

Wilkes looks at her, startled, angry, suspicious, but his weapon has lowered and Batman is out of range, out of sight… and who the hell is he chasing after? What did they already miss?

Renee ignores her partner and turns her attention to the thing that impacted her car. It's a plain black duffel bag, small, the kind you might take as airplane carry-on, and she crouches to unzip it.

"_Dios_," she says on a sharp intake of breath. She shines her flashlight on the bag's contents, just to be sure she's seeing what she's seeing, and is almost blinded by the reflected light.

Jewels. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, watches, _objects d'art_, ropes of stones, loose gems, cut, uncut, heaps and heaps of jewels and precious metals. It's a store's entire inventory, dumped into a bag and then dropped into her lap.

"Look at this," she calls to Wilkes, but instead of a response she hears a grunt and then a muffled noise, like a body falling.

Renee draws her weapon again and goes to stand, goes to investigate what's happening with her partner. She gets no farther than half-rising from her crouch when she feels her partner's gun barrel dig into the back of her neck.

"I'd like that back," a woman's voice says. She sounds balanced between furious and amused. "You wouldn't believe what I had to do to get it."

Renee goes very still. This is not part of her plan. This is not how her life is supposed to end.

She becomes fiercely aware of the bulletproof vest beneath her uniform, and the tiny bat-shaped bit of metal tucked into its fabric lining – a holy relic from the patron saint of urban justice.

She says, hearing herself from a distance, "Batman's after you."

"Gun, please," the woman says, ignoring her, and Renee hesitates before she turns her weapon over. "Close up the bag."

Renee leans down, slowly, carefully, and zips the bag shut again.

"Now pick it up."

She hefts the bag and stands straight – slowly – and holds it out in one arm. It weighs a lot more than she expected and her muscles strain to keep it steady.

Then an arm wrapped in dark leather reaches around and takes the weight from her. "Thanks," the woman says. The balance has tipped towards amused: "Have a nice night, officer."

The pressure at the back of her neck eases and before the woman can shoot her or pistol-whip her, Renee swings around and lashes out with a move that's more instinctive than trained. The woman dodges it – she's fast – and Renee finds herself sprawled flat on the pavement with a ringing noise in her ears and a stunned sensation in her side.

The woman casually shifts the bag over her shoulder and sketches a mocking salute in Batman's last direction. Then she turns and runs, quick and silent, heading the opposite way. She's gone in moments, lost in the shadows.

Renee groans and pushes herself up. Goes to check on her partner; he's out, but breathing. Sirens are coming closer – other units responding to the robbery call. She radios Dispatch anyway and tells them she needs backup.

She retrieves her weapon and sits, still a little dazed, in the passenger seat of her smashed squad car, watching over Wilkes and wondering how badly she's screwed up her chances to make detective.

Wondering what the hell is wrong with this city, that the cat burglars are now dressing like cats.


	2. Wake Up

The phone rings and Jim Gordon reaches for it on reflex – too many years as a cop. He fumbles around the surface of the nightstand, brushing against the base of the lamp, the frames of his glasses, the paperback book he means to read but keeps falling asleep before he can.

His fingers close on the cell phone on the second or third ring, and he sits up, swings his feet onto the floor, and puts the phone to his ear in the same motion.

He's wide awake by the time he answers it, voice held deliberately low for his sleeping wife's sake: "Gordon."

"It's Stephens," the detective on the other end says, rushed, as Jim finds his glasses and slides them on. "Look, Jim, I know the hour sucks but you're gonna want to get downtown. I mean ASAP."

Jim stands and moves a few steps towards the door – intending to take the call in the hallway, the bathroom, somewhere it won't wake Barbara – but the lamp beside the bed suddenly clicks on. The spill of light blinds him and he blinks to clear his vision, then turns to see his wife sitting up, pushing the hair out of her face and rubbing her eyes and waiting.

Just waiting.

Jim meets her eyes for a moment, then looks away and starts grabbing clothes from the closet. Stephens isn't a guy to panic, and if he thinks Jim needs to be downtown then that's probably the case. "What's happened?"

"Burglary in the Diamond District five minutes ago. Woman dressed like a cat put a gun to some patrolmen – she got away, patrolmen are saying the Bat went after her."

That makes Jim pause; five minutes is a long time for the Batman. "Like a cat? They're sure?"

"Yeah. We're trying to get a chopper on 'em, but no luck so far."

"I'm coming in," Jim says.

"Good, I sent a car for you," Stephens says. Possibly he's going to say more, but Jim hangs up and tosses the cell phone onto the bed. He needs both hands so he can zip his pants and work his belt through all the loops.

"It's two-thirty in the morning," Barb says, keeping her voice quiet, but she sounds wide awake - and not happy. "What's going on?"

"I have to go in," he says to his wife. He buttons up his shirt, tucks it in, and risks a glance at her.

She runs her hands over her face and through her hair, looking tired. "No you don't."

"I have to," he repeats. He wonders how much of the conversation she heard. Barb has never been a fan of Batman, and after what happened with Harvey Dent almost a year ago, she likes the vigilante even less.

It's funny, almost, in a sad way, because those same events made Jim like Batman more.

He tries to explain the current situation. "It's that cat woman. Remember? We've been trying to flush her out for months –"

"No, you don't _have_ to," Barb says, cutting him off. Now she looks frustrated. Angry. Disappointed. "You're the commissioner. You don't have to run in for every incident. You don't have to. You _want_ to."

There's a large percentage of truth in those words. Instead of answering, Jim slings a tie around his neck – the GCPD Commissioner should wear a tie, even at two-thirty in the morning – and starts looking for his shoes.

"But I _have to_ sit here and wait and worry. Your children _have to_ wonder if their father's going to come home."

That's fear in her voice, fully justified and reasonable fear. Once upon a time, he _did_ fail to come home breathing. And it's not as though he's blundered into a safer line of work since; his predecessor was murdered, after all.

He hates making her upset. Hates that he's asking her to live through her worst nightmare twice. He hates hurting her. He's been doing that a lot in the last year, and can't seem to stop.

At the same time – for God's sake, it's his _job_. She knew he was a cop when she married him. She knew he wasn't going to change.

He sits down on the bed opposite her with his socks and shoes. "This is a burglar, Barb, not some psychopath. She avoids confrontations – that's why she's so damn hard to catch. That's why we've only just discovered she even _exists_. We have a good chance of arresting her tonight. I have to be there."

Barb's face goes cold. She gets out of bed and goes into the bathroom, and the only reason, he suspects, that she doesn't slam the door is because the kids are asleep.

He finishes tying his shoes (they need to be shined, but hopefully, no one will notice that in the dark), grabs his jacket, and makes sure he has his gun. He waits for a minute, checks his watch, and figures that the car Stephens sent is almost to his house.

Jim knocks softly on the bathroom door and says, "I'll be home before breakfast."

Barb's voice comes back, muffled by the door: "Why bother." Angry. Disappointed. Afraid.

That's what five months of marriage counseling have gotten them.

_I have to go in, I'll be home before breakfast. _

_Why bother_.

Hell.

He thinks briefly, unhappily, about how much he loves her and what a mess their marriage has become, what a mess their lives have become. He honestly thinks, for the first time, that everyone might be better off if she _did_ take the kids and go home to Chicago.

He almost says it. But what the hell kind of thing is that to say to your wife, at two-thirty in the morning, as you're leaving to respond to a call?

"I'll be all right," he tells her. And he leaves.


	3. Twice

Renee sits in the back of the ambulance, letting the EMT patch her up. The cat lady left a few marks – mostly from the unexpected impact against the pavement. The scrape on the side of her forehead is going to leave a spectacular bruise, possibly even a black eye. She'll be looking lovely by the time she finally gets to go home.

But she doesn't care.

Three years. Three long, hard years, taking shit from everyone because she was a girl, because she wasn't in the mob's pocket, because – more recently – she was a stanch defender of the city's vigilante through fair weather and foul. Three years. Detective exams next week.

And it's all gone now.

"Here you go," the EMT says, passing her a box of juice. "Take the edge off."

She takes it and looks at the rosy, sunny picture of apples on the box, the big bold words, the little bendy straw in its plastic wrapper. Then she looks at the EMT, eyebrows raised. "Nothing stronger?"

He cracks a grin. "Nah, we keep the good stuff for VIPs."

"Thanks a lot."

"Go ahead – you'll feel better with your blood sugar up a bit."

Renee snorts and stabs the teeny straw into the box as the EMT fusses around in the front of the ambulance. She sucks on the apple juice, feeling ridiculous, feeling rebellious. She stays right where she is, ignores the media vultures flitting around the far fringes of the crime scene, and watches her partner throw her under a bus.

_Officer most likely to save her life_. Yeah right.

As soon as the EMTs determined that Wilkes didn't have a concussion or a spinal injury, he was up off the backboard and spilling his guts to the lieutenant that had arrived on scene. Renee's own scrupulously factual and neutral recital of events had instantly looked like the most pathetic sort of spin job. She had seen the collapse of her life's ambition in the lieutenant's disapproving frown.

Lieutenant Sarah Essen, the new face. Blonde and enough of a bitch that no one's fallen over themselves harassing her. Transferred in from New York a few months ago – to replace Gordon as the head of the Major Crimes Unit.

There's no way Essen would ever accept Renee now. The MCU is tasked to capture the Batman, not prevent officers from apprehending him. Telling Wilkes to hold his fire might have just torpedoed Renee's career.

She finishes the juice and flattens the cardboard box between her hands.

Still. Give her the chance for a do-over, and she'd make the same call. If there's one thing Renee knows for certain about her crazy, dirty city, one thing that holds constant in the midst of the chaos, it's this: Gotham needs the Batman. The end.

Essen finishes talking to Wilkes and has a chat with one of the MCU detectives for a few minutes. They look over at Renee every now and then as they talk.

Renee's sick of it. She gets down from the ambulance and tosses her empty juice box into a public trash can. Goes over to her poor battered car and examines the smashed-in windshield.

Some of the crime scene guys try to talk to her, but she's not really in the mood, and they give up fast and go back to work. It's a lot of scene to process – the street, the car, the store, probably the roof. Probably the roofs for a few blocks in every direction. They'll be busy for a long, long while.

The windshield will have to be completely replaced. There's a big dent in the hood, big enough for Renee to lay her hand in, palm flat, fingers stretched out, with room to spare. She can't touch it now, of course – the crime scene guys would have her head.

She runs her eyes over the buckled metal instead and finds the quarter-inch scar from her first run-in with Batman.

At the time she'd been thrilled: Middle of her shift, special request from the commissioner himself, would they go babysit a witness? A nun – not likely to be much trouble.

_Sure,_ she'd said; _but for how long? And for who?_

_Undercover unit. You'll know when he gets there,_ had been the answer.

She'd suspected right away. Sent Wilkes to go get coffee for the nun.

And then one of those little bat-shaped blades had thunked into her car, and she'd pried it free and later, at the station, stuck it inside her Kevlar vest, right next to her St. Michael's medallion.

In the present moment, Renee's attention is diverted to a car pulling up beyond the cordon. Camera lights swing toward it. Someone – Commissioner Gordon – climbs out in a hurry. He heads toward Essen and the MCU detective, and they move to meet him halfway.

There's a discussion that's over much too fast. Gordon nods, sends the detective off, and walks purposefully in Renee's direction. Essen follows him.

Gordon stops directly in front of her. "Officer Montoya."

She can't see his eyes; the reflections from the streetlights, the whirling light bars, and the crime scene kliegs turn his glasses into mirrors. She stands straight. She stands unafraid.

Inside she's shaking, inside she's sick, but that's what the bits of holy metal are for.

"Commissioner," she says.

"What happened here, Officer Montoya?"

"I screwed up, sir," she says, matter-of-fact. Essen makes a noise that might be approval or might be simple agreement. Renee hopes for the former but anticipates the latter.

Gordon's eyebrows go up. Skeptical, she thinks. Then he frowns. Not so good.

Essen coughs and says, "We need to talk about -"

Renee never does find out what they need to talk about, because at that moment she sees a quick dark flutter at the upper edge of her vision, and before she can take more than half a step away from her patrol car, the black bag drops with a heavy _bang!_ onto the dented hood.

People shout, people look up, people draw their weapons.

But not Gordon, and not Renee.

Neither of them, it seems, are especially surprised.

Renee puts her hands on her hips, jostling the equipment on her belt, and scowls at the heavy bag and the caved-in windshield behind it. For the first time, she feels resentment towards Batman.

Her car – _again_? Did he _have_ to?

"I should've let Wilkes shoot him," she says – not forgetting that the police commissioner is standing in front of her, but, rather, testing him. If she's screwed, that'll clinch it. If she's not -

"Maybe next time," Gordon says. Fighting down a smile.

And Renee Montoya starts to think that maybe things will be all right.


	4. As They Are

Nothing ever stays the same in Gotham City.

Two years ago Jim Gordon was a sergeant and the mob set all the rules. A year ago he was a lieutenant caught up inside the mob's chaotic death throes. And now he's the commissioner and organized crime is being replaced, one block at a time, by people who wear masks and jump off rooftops.

And his marriage is foundering, and he's supposed to hunt down the one man who might still drag the city out of its darkness, the man who saved his life and – most importantly – his son's.

Jim rubs the bridge of his nose, glasses bumping up against his forehead. Being appointed commissioner was intended as a reward, but there are times it feels an awful lot like a punishment.

Ceramic clinks on wood in front of him, and he looks up to see Lieutenant Essen has set a cup of coffee on the edge of her desk. "Jim," she says, shutting the office door against the background clatter of the MCU.

"Thanks," he says. Picks it up and takes a drink to cover the sudden twist of unease. The twist of guilt from lying to one of his allies. "What's your feeling?"

Essen sits in her chair and blows out a heavy breath at the stack of case files on the desk between them. "I think she's good for it," she says. "I think she's a damn ghost who's good at getting lost in the shuffle, and I don't like it. _Especially_ not the costume."

"Especially not the costume," Jim agrees.

"Bat men, cat women… I never thought I'd find a city crazier than New York."

He gives her an ironic salute with the coffee mug. "Welcome to Gotham."

She picks up a file and pages through it, not really interested in reading it. "You suspected this – a thief like this – already?"

That's what he told her earlier, justifying his precise knowledge of case numbers: That he started putting these pieces together when he was still with the MCU himself, not just slumming in the early-morning hours.

The truth is, of course, that the Batman handed him the information a few hours ago, after Jim left the crime scene, while Essen was still overseeing a search to capture the vigilante. How Batman got the numbers, Jim neither knows nor wants to know.

"More or less," Jim says.

Essen closes the file and tosses it back on top of the stack. "I still think we could have made an arrest," she says, referring to Batman, not the thief. They'd argued about it at the scene - although not where the news cameras could hear.

"A SWAT team couldn't do it," he says, superstitiously spooked at how her mind moves and trying not to show it. "Hell, half the department couldn't do it. You had three detectives and some patrolmen. It wasn't possible. Trust me."

She meets his eyes. Hers are very blue and very sharp. "I do."

Unspoken but still audible is: _Except on this_.

He holds her stare. Sarah Essen is tough and uncompromising and a damn good cop; that's why he handpicked her to be his successor, why he trusts her, why he's having this meeting down in the MCU instead of holding court in the commissioner's office.

He wonders how much she knows and how much she can prove.

"I'd like to ask a favor," he says, shifting slightly but not looking away. As commissioner he could simply order her. That's not his style, though, and he's determined not to fall into the trap of throwing his weight around just because he can.

She looks down, deliberately conceding, picking up her own coffee. "All right."

"Montoya. She's a good cop."

"Not tonight," Essen points out mildly, then waves away his protest before it can even form. "No, I know, she wasn't trying to screw up. And she admitted it, so she's all clear as far as I'm concerned. IA, on the other hand…" Essen shrugs.

Jim nods, pleased that they're in agreement on that, at least. "She'll be okay." He clears his throat. "I want you to put her in Major Crimes."

"Because our quota of rookie Latinas is too low?" she asks with warranted asperity. "Sorry, Jim, but no. I need a better reason than you, asking for a favor."

He thinks of Anna Ramirez, of the last time he saw her, how ground down and defeated she looked in the defendant's chair, with all the life snuffed out of her eyes. Too tired to fight against a guilty plea, against the ghost of Rachel Dawes, against justice moving sluggishly - but surely - to wash away the last traces of the mob's sticky fingers.

He'd sent flowers to her mother's funeral last month. It had seemed like the right thing to do.

"Montoya is not Ramirez," he says, irritated but trying not to show it. "Her background's clean, Sarah – I've had an eye on her for a while. She deserves better than patrol for the next twenty years."

Essen's eyebrows raise, and the sharpness returns to her expression. "I've been watching her, too. She's not popular. Makes some of her sympathies too obvious."

Meaning her Batman sympathies, which are what drew Jim's attention in the first place.

"That's not a crime." If it was he would've been tried and convicted long ago – by a judge, not simply his wife.

Essen sighs. "I'll consider it. Okay, sir?"

"Fair enough." He leans back in the chair and relaxes a small, small fraction. He feels better for having taken care of Montoya. It's one thing he wanted to do and didn't get the chance to, as a lieutenant. His time in that position hadn't lasted nearly as long as he –

Time.

He feels an inward lurch of panic and checks his watch – _Oh shit_ – wincing when he sees the numbers. It's later than he thought – much later. But he can still make it.

"I need to get home," he says, abandoning the coffee mug to the desk, standing and heading for the door. He'll have to sign for a car – that shouldn't take longer than six minutes short of forever. "I told my wife… She'll kill me if I don't."

"Hold on," Essen says, "I'll get you a ride." She stands up, too, and he lets her go through the door first, holding it open for her.

"Allen!" she calls to one of the detectives, and a few seconds later the lucky fellow is going in search of his car keys while Jim remembers – belatedly – that his jacket is still in Essen's office. He retrieves it and remembers – belatedly – to thank her.

She rolls her shoulder, clearly uncomfortable, but he can't figure why. "It's nothing. I remember having someone waiting at home," she says. Wistful and bitter and wry all at once. "It's a hard life for them. A steep price. Too steep for some people," she adds, still with that mix of inflections.

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Jim says again, not wanting to hear about failed relationships. "Good work this morning," he says, louder, to all of the MCU personnel, and gets a light spattering of appreciative comments and applause. Then he leaves with Allen.

On the ride home he chafes at every red light, every delay. And he wonders more about their thief. Why a cat? What drew her out of the shadows where she's hidden, so successfully, for so long?

He thinks it has something to do with that missing kid case the Batman was investigating months ago. But if Batman has known about her for months… She should be in handcuffs by now.

A disquieting thought. As is this:

What else is already roaming Gotham City, waiting to be discovered?

"I can put on the siren," Allen offers at one red light, eyebrows raising over his glasses, one corner of his mouth curving up. Crispus Allen is another good cop, and a lucky one: He was on vacation when the Joker blew up half the MCU.

"No," Jim says automatically. He wants to play things clean. He pledged at the outset, in those first weeks after the Joker's vicious spree, that his time as commissioner was going to be transparent and honest, that he was going to complete the transformation of Gotham into a law-abiding city – and he's already having regular back-alley meetings with a wanted criminal. Any more abuses of power and he may be crushed under the hypocrisy altogether.

Allen has barely rolled to a stop at the curb in front of the house when Jim jumps out, calling his thanks over his shoulder, walking fast, half-jogging to his door. He straightens his tie and smoothes his hair automatically as he enters, as if he's going to meet a victim's family, or a crucial suspect.

The kids are up; he can tell by the background sounds from the TV. Some cartoon, no doubt, all flash and noise and hyperkinetic bright colors that'd give him a headache if he tried to watch it.

He goes into the kitchen, saying, "Good morning!" like it's Christmas.

His daughter squeals "Daddy!" and flings her arms around his knees, hugging him, nearly knocking him down. His son breaks into a wide grin over his cereal bowl and says, "Morning, Dad."

His wife looks at him without saying anything, but there's a sheen to her eyes and a tightness to her stance that tells him everything.

He says, "I'm not too late, am I?"

Barb gives him a smile.

A small one. A watery one.

But a real one.

"No," she says. "No, you... No. You're just in time."

And Jim Gordon starts to think that maybe things will be all right.

**---end---**


End file.
